


blue

by calcelmo



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ignores TPTR, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24352180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcelmo/pseuds/calcelmo
Summary: “Tell me what I did,” Coop begs. Harry feels faintly sick, but he steels himself against it.“It’s not about what you did,” Harry says. “It’s about whatIdid.”
Relationships: Dale Cooper/Harry Truman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	blue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Taste of Coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18156536) by [desperately_human](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperately_human/pseuds/desperately_human). 



> I have read everything in this AU and I love it. I tweaked it a little so that a) Coop doesn't realise how long he's been gone, so he hasn't really changed at all, and b) BAD COOP severely wounded/tortured Harry and so there's more personal conflict.
> 
> I was particularly taken with desperately_human's fic. It's beautifully written. If you go to their fic (linked here), you'll see that it was also inspired by someone else- and in turn, that fic was ALSO inspired by someone else! I think it would be awesome if we continued the chain of fics written in this AU, inspired by the one that came before us. 
> 
> Anyway, that's just my dream. I hope you enjoy the fic, comments are always appreciated <3

"Cooper's on his way, Sheriff. I couldn't put him off again."

Harry can't bring himself to be angry with Hawk. His deputy has done everything he can to protect him, protect the town, but it's not fair to keep Coop in the dark any longer. Today, Harry received the results of the tests they'd conducted on Coop's brain, the pysch evals.

He's fine. He disappeared for half a decade, and he's fine. 

Now Harry has to face up to explaining what's happened. He wishes Coop hadn't come back. It makes everything worse. He'd asked Hawk and Ed to keep an eye on him in the hospital, because he couldn't trust anyone else, and they needed to keep this under wraps. If the FBI got wind of it, it would be a disaster. Ed said Coop seemed quiet. He said, is Norma allowed to bring him some pie? And Harry said yes, even though it was risky- because none of this was Coop's fault.

"He asked me what was going on and I just didn't know what to say, Sheriff," Norma had told him. She sounded tearful. "He's just so _sad."_

Harry isn't ready to see Coop again, and he doesn't think he ever will be. But it's only been a couple of weeks, and he still hasn't figured out what they're going to _do._ As far as the FBI is concerned, Dale Cooper is a wanted murderer. He's also indisputably dead- they saw the body themselves- and has been for a year. Coop won't be able to go back to work, and even if Harry thought he could stand to work alongside him- even if Coop was interested- he can't be seen working for the police department, because he's _supposed to be dead._

The worst part is this: Harry can't be sure that he isn't. He doesn't trust himself to be able to tell the difference any more. It's not like he can think, "That's something Other Coop would say", because everything Coop says is something Other Coop would say. It's not like he can think "That's something Other Coop would do", because by then, it would be too late. They were the same. Only what they _did_ was different.

"Why?"

Harry freezes, staying motionless so he can pick up what's being said through the walls. He isn't ready. He isn't ready. His knuckles turn white on the handle of his cane.

" _Why_ won't he see me?!"

He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it’s strange to hear Coop raise his voice. He's been back for some weeks now. Harry has done everything in his power to avoid him.

There's shouting, some fuss. The door to his office is thrown open and the last person on Earth he wants any contact with is standing there on the threshold.

"My God, Harry," says Cooper, staring at him.

Harry folds his arms, feeling like a bug under a microscope. "Get him out of here." Hawk puts a hand on Coop's shoulder to try and guide him away, but Coop shrugs it off.

"What happened?" he says hoarsely.

 _You happened,_ Harry thinks. But he doesn't say it, because he's already heard Hawk's opinion that he's being "cruel" for holding a grudge, and he's sick of pity. It would be too much, to see it in the face of the man who did this to him. 

Cooper’s eyes seem to be darker than they were before. Not hazel, not even brown, but black. Whatever light glinting inside them dies as he puts the pieces together in his head. Hawk doesn’t have to prompt him. He hesitates, as if there is anything that he could say to make this better. Then he realizes that there isn’t, and he turns away.

Harry is by himself again. 

He knows that Hawk found Coop in the woods. He knows that he stood watch outside Coop’s room in the hospital, alone, because when he asked Harry if he wanted to come visit, Harry said no. He knows that when Coop woke up, no one was there to see him do it. And that the first thing he said when Hawk came into the room was “Where’s Annie?”

It’s been three weeks by the day. There were four people who knew Coop had come back. Harry. Hawk. Ed. Norma.

Now there are eight. Lucy. Andy. Audrey Horne. Annie Blackburn. 

Harry thinks about the last thing Coop said to him.

_Don’t hurt me, Harry._

No- the last thing _Coop_ said to him.

_I have to go on alone._

That was five years ago. Losing Coop had turned him into a shadow of his former self, but killing him had made him into a monster. 

He rubs his hands over his eyes, careful. Knowing that he has to face his fears, knowing that projecting his hatred of BOB onto innocent, kindhearted Cooper is just cold and stupid.

He gets up, opens the door and says, “Come here.” Can’t bring himself to say his name, but he looks him dead in the eyes, and waits. Waits. Till Coop comes close, treading softly like he’s a wild buck.

Harry feels the rest of them crowding against the walls, can practically feel their breath through the wood as they try and listen to their conversation. 

He keeps his voice quiet, level. “You were top billing on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

Coop opens his mouth and then closes it again. It’s kind of funny. It also hurts. Harry thought his love for Coop had long since burned out, replaced by the rage that eventually destroyed him. 

_Not him._

His love comes back with an intensity that’s dizzying. _I missed you,_ he’s screaming inside. On the out, he clenches his hands into fists, to stop himself from wrapping them around Coop’s neck. 

Coop looks down. He notices. When he looks back up, everything seems to have slowed down. 

“' _Were?’_ ” he asks. 

Harry shrugs. “Well, we stopped you eventually.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Right.”

_To me, it was you. You show up in the woods, claiming to be Coop, but you’re just another creature wearing his face. You’ll kill me. You’ll take the rest of me, you’ll take whatever he left behind._

“I’m told it’s been five years.”

Five years of hell.

“What was it like?” Harry asks him. He doesn’t look like he’s aged all that much, maybe the lines on his face are darker. Maybe he’s thinner and paler, or maybe this was what Coop always looked like. Harry can’t remember. He can only remember what Coop’s face looked like when it was blue and frozen in that terrible laughter. 

“I walked through the curtain, into the Black Lodge. I sat down, in a red room with the man from my dreams. Laura Palmer was there.” He paused, and shook his head. “It only felt like I’d been there for a moment.”

“And when you woke up?”

“Hawk was leaning over me, with a gun to my head. I asked him where Annie was. No one will tell me.”

“Annie doesn’t want you to know where she is.”

Coop, to his credit, tries not to react, but his whole aura of bewildered distress only worsens, by the way his shoulders rise and fall on one shuddering inhale.

“You won’t be able to go back to the Bureau,” Harry tells him, because he figures someone should. It’s the problem he’s been trying to solve ever since his radio crackled to life and Hawk said “I found Coop in the woods. He’s alive. The real Coop, Harry, the one we lost.”

“Tell me what I did,” Coop begs. Harry feels faintly sick, but he steels himself against it.

“It’s not about what you did,” Harry says. “It’s about what _I_ did.”

“What do you mean, Harry?”

“Sit down.”

They sit. Then Harry gets back up and makes them both a coffee, because he can hide his nerves behind the rim of the mug, and every time he wants to reach out, he can burn his mouth instead. Also, he needs time to think about what he’s going to say. He wants to do this without hurting Coop. That part of him is fighting with the part that wants to hurt Coop more than anything.

He sets the mug on the table; he doesn’t hand it to him, because if they end up touching each other, he’s going to go insane. 

“While you were trapped in the Black Lodge, BOB came out wearing your face.”

Coop’s fingers curl around the cup of coffee, and they stay there, burning his skin.

“We didn’t realize until it was too late. You- _he-_ went to see Annie up at the hospital, and… let’s just say that he left her in a worse state than she’d arrived in.” 

“Tell me,” Coop whispers.

“It’s only gonna hurt you, Coop,” Harry answers, and he doesn’t know why his voice cracks, or why his eyes are stinging with the threat of tears, or why his words are the colour of the tender sorrow he’d fought so hard to hide.

Coop says, “Yes. But I have to know.”

Harry closes his eyes and behind them, he sees the medical report. He sees Annie flinching, always flinching. 

“He went into her room. They talked. Annie didn’t tell me exactly what they talked about, but she said he seemed… normal.” 

Coop hides his hands under the table so he won’t see them shaking. 

Harry sips his coffee. It’s too hot to drink, but he drinks it anyway. “Then he picked up the vase of flowers that was beside her bed and beat her with it. When she was nearly unconscious, he sexually assaulted her. Somehow she managed to escape and call for help, and he fled.”

Coop starts crying, but it’s strange, because he’s pretending that he’s not. He’s just staring at Harry like- half of him so _beyond_ horrified, half of him hoping that a blue moon will rise outside the window and he can safely say this is just another nightmare. 

“This was within days of you going missing. She left right away. I heard she went straight back to that convent. Then she went to a psych ward.”

Coop looks away, down into the blackness of his coffee. He stares at it, this barely-there frown on his face, as if the rising steam is talking to him.

“Does she know I came back?” he asks quietly.

It’s Harry’s turn to look away. “Yes,” he admits. “I called her.”

“I need to talk to her. Try and… explain. Make things right.”

Harry laughs. It’s so dead and so hollow. “You don’t, and you can’t.”

“I need her to know that I would never do that. I would never hurt her. I-”

It’s making him angry, that Coop only seems to care about her. Because Annie got to get away, but Harry didn’t. Harry stayed, with the ghost of eight victims on his tail, re-learning how to walk, and re-learning how to live. Harry can’t see properly any more, or walk properly, or leave the house without looking over his shoulder. 

“What about what she needs?” Harry asks, disbelieving. “You have no idea what it would do to her, seeing you again. She’s spent all this time trying to move on and heal, then you shatter the peace she’s built just so you can- you can what, rebuild the image she had of you? Her white knight?”

“Harry,” Coop bites out, hurt. 

“Maybe for you it seems like you haven’t even been gone that long. But for us, we were terrorised by someone we thought was you for years. He exploited our trust, and then we paid the price.”

“I know that. And I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t you. But you need to understand that to us, it was. You can’t know… you can’t know what that’s like.”

“I do.”

“It’s different,” Harry snaps. “We were innocent.”

Coop clenches his jaw. It’s the closest Harry’s ever seen him to anger. 

In life, you make mistakes, and you face the consequences. Coop went after Caroline, and he faced the consequences. But Annie never made a mistake. Harry didn’t. The eight murder victims did not make a mistake.

“Over the years, eight people died. More were maimed. We did everything we could to try and catch him, but all we ever caught were glimpses. The FBI were involved- your friends were intent on heading up the case. They didn’t believe you were capable of things like that, and they knew that things aren’t what they seem here in Twin Peaks. In time, with the body count rising, they were broken down. They lost hope.”

_I lost hope._

“Tell me he’s not still out there.”

“He’s not,” Harry says. “Albert and Gordon came to ID the body. Case closed.”

Coop breathes out, takes a steadying mouthful of coffee. Harry guesses that coming into contact with his alter ego seemed unfathomable. Although knowing Coop, he’d never shy away. 

A voice at the back of his head says, _‘knowing Coop? Do you really know Coop?’_

“I know he hurt you too,” Coop says. It’s disgustingly tender, the tone you would use to speak to a child.

Harry wonders if Coop is referring to his eyes, face, and cane, or if he’s referring to the deeper wounds, that cut into his faith in humanity. 

It’s one thing to be hurt. It’s another to be torn apart while you look up into the eyes of someone you loved. You plead and plead, but they never stop. 

He won’t tell Coop what happened. Not for a long time. Half of him is still tensed, waiting for Coop to spring, laughing and screaming _how could you fall for it again?_ He doesn’t really want to make things worse.

He remembers how BOB said, in Coop’s voice, with wonder and disgust- “This one loves too much,” while he dug out Harry’s left eye with a pocket knife. He remembers dragging himself across the floor to reach the phone cord, while his legs were bent and twisted at unnatural angles. He remembers the feeling of his jawbone shattering under the force of a hammer, and his teeth scattering onto the floor.

“I strangled him to death,” Harry says, and forcing the words out is like trying to pull himself out of quicksand. And what he means is, _I strangled you to death. I watched your skin turn blue, and your eyes bulge out of your head. I listened to your desperate, fearful sounds, while you clawed at my wrists and your body convulsed beneath me. I watched your lips try and form my name, and for a moment I wondered if I’d brought you back out somehow. The real you. But I didn’t stop until you were dead._

Coop swallows, hard, around the lump in his throat. “Good,” he answers, nodding. “Good.”


End file.
